The analysis of the intraday dynamics of covariances among high-frequency returns is challenging due to asynchronous trading and market microstructure noise. Both effects lead to significant data reduction and may severely affect the estimation of the covariances if traditional methods for...

The use of improved covariance matrix estimators as an alternative to the sample estimator is considered an important approach for enhancing portfolio optimization. Here we empirically compare the performance of 9 improved covariance estimation procedures by using daily returns of 90 highly...

We discuss some methods to quantitatively investigate the properties of correlation matrices. Correlation matrices play an important role in portfolio optimization and in several other quantitative descriptions of asset price dynamics in financial markets. Specifically, we discuss how to define...